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Wednesday, May 14, 2008
SPANISH HARLEM
Ben E. King
Atlantic : 1960
Available on: Spanish Harlem/Don't Play That Song
Collectables : 1998
[Buy It]
SPANISH HARLEM
Aretha Franklin
Atlantic : 1971
Available on: Queen of Soul
Atlantic : 1992
[Buy It]
SPANISH HARLEM
Smith Smith
Unity : 1968
Available on: Keep That Lovelight Shining
[Out of Print]
ESCALES (PORTS OF CALL): MODERE TRES RYTHME
Jacques Ibert : 1924
Minnesota Orchestra: Eihi Oue, conductor
Available on: Ports of Call
Reference : 1997
[Buy It]
Atlantic Records was one of the very few indie labels to survive the transition from the 50s to the 60s, and they did it by shifting their emphasis slightly away from black rock and rollers (Ray Charles, Ruth Brown, The Coasters, The Clovers, The Drifters, Big Joe Turner), amping up their arrangements, and coming up with series of in-betwixt, throwin'-shit-at-the-wall recordings. (In conversation, the label's boss, Ahmet Ertegun described them as "synthetic.") And so, Atlantic's first white artist, Bobby Darin, scored with "Splish Splash," and "Mack the Knife," and Ben E. King scored his first hit with "Spanish Harlem," which rose higher on the pop charts than it did as rhythm and blues.
The song was written by Jerry Leiber and Phil Spector, who came up with an ascending melody which reminded Leiber of Ibert's Ports of Call, L'Escales. "It had that particular Spanish sound, so I kept pushing him in that direction," Leiber recalled. "Building the chords, a third up, a third up. He wrote the tune, but I was pushing him in the direction of a contour that was really an imitation of L'Escales. While he was doing this, I got the idea, which was literal. It was Spanish, 'Spanish Harlem,' and I wrote it - wrote it on the spot."
A Spanish melody, set to a Brazilian (Baion) rhythm ("By My Baby," by the Ronettes, would use it, too - "for a while, that rhythm became everyone's idea of what rock and roll was," Leiber's partner, Mike Stoller, would say.) And, of course, strings on top. (According to the American Masters biography of Ertegun - which is 20x better than the half-assed AM bio of Marvin Gaye, which PBS aired last week - the strings annoyed one of Atlantic's founders, Herb Abramson, so much that he left the company.)
Synthetic.
J'OUVERT BARRIO
Roaring Lion
Available on: The Sacred 78s
Ice : 1994
[Out of Print]
Compare "Spanish Harlem" to Roaring Lion's J'ouvert Barrio, which was recorded a few decades earlier.
The drumming, and the tightly-structured call-and-response, are utterly African. The trumpet and saxophone solos are utterly American. The lyrics combine English and patois, and conflate the sacred and the secular. And the violin at the end sounds like something you'd hear on a Django Reinhardt recording.
Synthetic?
MAMBO IN AFRICA
Maya Angelou
Miss Calypso
Scamp : 1956
[Buy It]
I LEARN A MERENGUE, MAMA
Robert Mitchum
Calypso - Is Like So
Scamp: 1957
[Buy It]
FIRE DOWN THERE
The Charmer
Monogram : c. 1954
Available on: Calypso Favorites: 1953-1954
Bostrox : 2000
[Out of Print]
Moistworks readers know that I've got a real soft spot for real calypso. In America, the form was once so popular that it threatened to eclipse rock and roll in the public imagination. Maya Angelou, Robert Mitchum, and Louis Farrakhan (or, Louis Eugene Walcott, who performed as The Charmer) all cut calypso albums.
But, with the exception of Farrakhan (who was once a serious musician, and spent some years playing alongside of bona-fide Calypsonians), American calypsonians aspired to the condition of Harry Belafonte, and the results made "Spanish Harlem" sound like folk music.
BELAFONTE
King Solomon
Carnival Kings & Pink Gin
Cook : 1957
[Buy It]
What I'm really talking about here is cultural colonialism, which brings me to a song called "Barbados Carnival."
I first heard it on Dizzy Gillespie's 1964 album Jambo Caribe!; according to the liner notes, "'Barbados Carnival' was written by [Gillespie's] multitalented bassist-guitarist-vocalist Chris White, whose wildsounding [sic] 'ah! ah!' echoes infectuously throughout this tune. Chris discovered his inspiration for this assertive rhythmic refrain on the island of Barbados in the West Indies." Needless to say, the song's credited to Chris White. But the other day, I came across another recording of "Barbados Carnival" - except for an extra verse, it's almost identical, and while I can't find a date, I'm 99.999% sure it's earlier. Which leads me to think that, if Dizzy Gillespie's sidemen are treating Trinidad's music as their own, personal property - well, draw your own conclusions:
BARBADOS CARNIVAL
Dizzy Gillespie
Jambo Caribe!
Verve : 1964
[Buy It]
BARBADOS CARNIVAL
Mighty Panther
Available on: Legends of Calypso
Arc : 2002
[Buy It]Labels: alex, calypso, kitsch, pop
posted by Alex
LINK |
Thursday, May 10, 2007
HEY KARI G.
The Sparrows
Susstones: 1990
[Out of Print]
SHE SENDS KISSES
The Wrens
The Meadowlands
Absolutely Kosher: 2003
[Buy It]
BIRDSONG
Tomahawk
Mit Gas
Ipecac: 2003
[Buy It]
A FUNKY SPACE REINCARNATION
Marvin Gaye
Here, My Dear
Tamla Motown: 1978
[Buy It]
AH FRAID PUSSY BITE ME
Mighty Sparrow
Comi-Kal Cat Fight
Mighty Sparrow: 2001
[Buy It]
Once, years ago, in a short story in my first book, "Superbad," a bird sang. It was a small bird, and the song it sang was small, too, though the consequences of singing were enormous. "The bird flew through a gap in the wire, minding its own business, singing - it was actually singing, a happy little song about the spring - and she plugged it at two hundred yards." Pow. Bye, bye, birdie. When I finished the story, I sent it to a friend who was also a writer for his comments. I received one comment, which was that birds didn't sing when they flew. He told me that it was a well-known fact, with a tone that was infuriating but somehow replenished my affection for him. He had enough certainty to send me to the encyclopedia, where I discovered that he was wrong. Many birds, including skylarks and pipits, sing while they're flying. In attempting to differentiate between the British Chimney Swallow and the American Barn Swallow, John James Audubon wrote in Birds of America that "both sing on the wing and when alighted, and the common tweet which they utter when flying off is precisely the same in both." They sing on the wing. That's a song in itself.
"Hey Kari G" is a song in itself, also. The song was written by the Minneapolis power-pop great Dan Sarka, who recorded it first in 1990 with a group called the Sparrows. The Sparrows only released two singles, as far as I know, and Sarka resurfaced a few years later with a band called the Vandalias, who were best-known for existing in both human and cartoon form. Conceptually, they were located somewhere between the Josie and the Pussycats and the Gorillaz; aesthetically, they were closer to Cheap Trick and the Raspberries; somewhere along the way, they rerecorded "Hey Kari G." Eventually The Vandalias folded, like most bands, and Sarka went on form to a band called Stingray Green that released one strong album, "Hard Numbers," before also folding. I read about the demise of Stingray Green just this past week online-the band's farewell concert was May 4-and that sent me back to the Sparrows' version of "Hey Kari G." It's everything it needs to be, both plangent and poignant. The guy in the song-the guy singing the song-hopes against hope that his small, strong voice will reach the girl and turn her toward him once again. It's a document of innocence and hope and sad defiance; he has an idea but no might, and so he cannot bring his idea into the world. I doubt that the girl turned.
The girl also doesn't turn in "She Sends Kisses." The record does, though:Ten tons against me and you've gone
I put your favorite records on
and sit around
it spins around
and you're around again. This is a song about human song, of course, not birdsong. The French composer and ornithologist Olivier Messiaen was obsessed with birdsong. He recorded and notated the songs of birds his entire life, and often integrated birdsong into his music, most notably in his the orchestral work Reveil des Oiseaux, from 1953. Mike Patton, the lead singer of Tomahawk (and, before that, Faith No More and Mr. Bungle) is among the most birdlike of singers, in that he often uses sounds instead of words. Recent research has shown that there is a strong link between birdsong and memory. Birds have unique songs, but they don't simply remember them. They dream of them. While they sleep, they learn what they want, and what they want from their songs and their lives. They may, upon waking, be reminded of what they do not have. The consequences of singing are enormous. Pow. Bye, bye, birdie.
There is a desperately beautiful song named "Sparrow" on Marvin Gaye's album Here My Dear, from 1978, which chronicles Gaye's divorce from his first wife and his blossoming love for his second wife. In the song, Marvin explains that he "used to hear a sparrow singing," but that "one day as [he] went along [he] didn't hear his song." This silence doesn't sit well with him, and what starts as a polite request to the sparrow to resume singing becomes a down-on-my-knees-please entreaty. "Sing before you go," he sings. "Sing to me, Marvin Gaye, before you fly away." "Sparrow" ends with a semi-attached bit of poetry, calligraphed in layered, lighter-than-air vocals: "I remember a bird." What kind of bird he remembers is clear from another song, "A Funky Space Reincarnation," that is more relevant here: first, because it's an unhinged, lickerish meditation on flight in which Marvin takes a girl out into the solar system for some interplanetary screwing, and second because it includes a lovely come-on in which he calls his new bride, "Little Miss Birdsong." Anna, Marvin's first wife, was seventeen years his senior and Berry Gordy's sister. Jan, his second wife, was seventeen years his junior and Slim Gaillard's daughter. Jan turned. Marvin turned, too, or had his head turned. He may not have understood why, but Mighty Sparrow did.
. . . . . . . . . .
Ben Greenman is the author of several books of fiction, including Superbad, Superworse, and the new A Circle is a Balloon and Compass Both: Stories About Human Love. He is an editor at the New Yorker and lives in Brooklyn.Labels: ben, calypso, indie, power-pop, soul
posted by Alex
LINK |
Tuesday, May 01, 2007
Here's a nice quote about love:
Love: we are those beings who must, at all times, give our all. To be decieved has no real meaning for us, for we act under immense pressure and the object has the sole functionof unleashing this. Thus we are as naive as children when it comes to judging the loved one. Even when a lover only desires flirtation and a touch of sentiment we are so dazzled that we want to give her everything - our very soul. We are ridiculous, but for good reason.
- Robert Musil, Diaries 1899-1944
And a few tracks from the mix cd I'm working on:
I'M STANDING IN THE SHADOWS
The 5 Royals
Todd 7" : 1963
[Criminally Out of Print]
THAT'S HOW I FEEL
The Soul Clan (Solomon Burke, Arthur Conley, Joe Tex, Ben E. King, Don Covay)
Soul Meeting
Atlantic : c. 1968
Available on: Atlantic Unearthed: Soul Brothers
Atlantic : 2006
[Buy It]
WHEN YOU TOUCH ME
The Reigning Sound
Too Much Guitar
In The Bed Records : 2004
[Buy It]
PEGGY
Toots & The Maytals
BMN 7" : 1965
Available on: Pressure Drop The Definitive Collection
Trojan : 2005
[Buy It]
LOVE POTION #9
The Coasters
The Coasters on Broadway
King : 1973
[Even More Criminally Out of Print]/Courtesy of Soul Sides
CRIMSON & CLOVER
The Uniques
Available on: The Best of Slim Smith & The Uniques 1967-1969
Trojan US : 2003
[Buy It]
A TASTE OF HONEY (LIVE)
James Booker
Spiders on the Keys: Live at the Maple Leaf Bar
Rounder : 1993
[Buy It]
(THE LOVE I SAW IN YOU WAS) JUST A MIRAGE
The Uniques
Available on: The Best of Slim Smith & The Uniques 1967-1969
Trojan US : 2003
[Buy It]
SEARCHING THE DESERT FOR THE BLUES
Blind Willie McTell
Available on: The Best of Blind Willie McTell
Yazoo : 2004
[Buy It]
GOODBYE BOOZE
The Delmore Brothers
Available on: Classic Cuts 1933-1941
JSP : 2004
[Buy It]
FUEL FOR LOVE
Wrinkers Experience
Available on : EMI Super Hits
EMI Nigeria : c. the early '70s
[Out of Print]/Also courtesy of Soul Sides
There's no theme yet, except that a few friends are getting married this year, so it's pretty heavy on the love songs. And not all of the squares are in place, but a few of these songs - Crimson & Clover, Love Potion # 9, James Booker's Rachmaninov- flavored Taste of Honey - will make it on by dint of their awesomeness. So this is more or less what I've been walking around in the sunshine listening to. And now, in entirely unrelated (but somewhat more timely) news:
FIDEL CASTRO
Lord Invader
Calypso Travels
Folkways : 1959
[Buy It]Labels: african, alex, bluegrass, blues, calypso, reggae, soul, soul/garage-core
posted by Alex
LINK |
Thursday, December 28, 2006
1. THAT'S WHAT THE GOOD BOOK SAYS (UNISSUED TAKE)
The Robins
Modern : 1951
Available on: The Leiber & Stoller Story vol. 1: The Los Angeles Years 1951-1956
Ace : 2004
[Buy It]
2. FRIED NECK BONES AND SOME HOME FRIES
Willie Bobo
Uno Dos Tres 1-2-3
Verve : 1965
[Buy It]
3. OMELEBELE
Dr. Victor Olaiya's International All Stars
Available on: Lagos Chop Up: Fuji & Afrobeat, Highlife & Juju
Honest Jon's : 2005
[Buy It]
4. RESPECT
Prince Buster
Sla-Lip-Soul
Blue Beat : 1965
[Out of Print]
5. COLLAGE
The Three Degrees
Maybe
Roulette : 1970
Available on: The Roulette Years
Sequel : 1996
Courtesy of: Soul Sides
[Out of Print]
6. CRY
Johnnie Ray
Okeh : 1951
Available on: Cry!
Bear Family: 1990
[Buy It]
7. ROCOMBEY
Lord Cobra & Pana Afro Sounds
Available on: Panama! Latin, Calypso, and Funk on the Isthmus 1965-1975
Soundway : 2006
[Buy It]
8. THE CHICKEN ASTRONAUT
5 Du-Tones
One-Derful! (?): c. 1963
Available (as an import) on: 5 Du-Tones
Ringo : 1996
[Buy It]
Nice manifesto, Brian - goes good w/the Bolaño novels I've been tearing through this week. So, I'm gonna repeat myself, too, in a way, and post the second Moistworks International New Year's Mix. It'll go up in three parts today, tomorrow, & pver the weekend - just in time for your own, personal New Year's celebration - and you'll be able to download a PDF of the cover soon, though the image above works nicely, too.
Back in the USSR, New Years was the new hotness; Santa Claus - Grandpa Frost - came on New Year's, and celebrants who wrote a single wish on a tiny piece of paper, folded it twice, and swallowed it with their first sip of stroke-of-midnight-champagne found that said wish always came true. Try it yourselves - but careful what you wish for!
1. The very young Leiber and Stoller record what is maybe the first rock and roll song, and what makes it so is that the Robins manage to get each and every biblical reference back-asswards. You can tell that Leiber and Stoller are real artists from the days/night get-go:Well in the days of old King Sol
Every night was a crazy ball
The cats smoked hay through a rubber hose
And the women they wore transparent clothes... 2. 'Nuff religion; let's eat &
3. dance.
4. The mighty Prince Buster seems to incorporate verses based on "Turn, Turn, Turn," which came out just a few weeks after "Respect," into this recording of, er, "Respect." Mash-ups, too, are nothing esp. new.
5. One of the best songs Soul Sides posted this year, recorded in 1970 by Prince Charles' favorite girl group: "Wintertime is razor blade that the devil made/It's a price we pay for the summertime."
6. This song puts in an encore appearance later on in the mix, in an entirely different context. I've got lots to say about Johnnie Ray, and if my hand wasn't broken I'd say it here.
7. The Morning News singled us out as their favorite [MP3] blog this year (thanks, Morning News dudes!); they specifically mentioned my love of calypso. What can I say? I dig calypso.
NB: Vodun is the second of 4 (or 5, depending on whether you consider the Robins song Jewish or xTian) religions to appear on this mix.
8. The 5 Du-Tones - who recorded the original "Shake a Tail Feather" - are unheralded geniuses. Is there such a thing as soul/garage-core? If so, Du-Tones are the fuckin' Sonics.
to be continued....Labels: afro-beat, alex, calypso, new year's mix, prince charles, rock and roll = gospel music, soul/garage-core, spanish grease
posted by Alex
LINK |
Monday, May 22, 2006
KITCHENER'S BEBOP CALYPSO
Lord Kitchener
Melodisc : c. 1951
Available on: London Is The Place For Me: Trinidadian Calypso in London, 1950-1956
Honest Jons Records : 2002
[Buy It]
CALYPSO BE
Young Tiger
Melodisc : 1953
Available on: London Is The Place For Me: Calypso & Kwela, Highlife & Jazz From Young Black London
Honest Jons Records : 2006
[Buy It]
Internecine jazz wars raged in New York in the 1940s, spilled over into the Carribean and ended up in a London where they were fought by proxy, in the streets of Notting Hill, by a host of Trinidadian stick-fighters and calypsonians. Lord Kitchener launched an opening salvo with this defense of the music's avant-garde:I heard the record of Gillespie
It really enchanted me just to hear him play "Anthropology" The Mighty Terror, Lords Invader, Executor, and Smasher, and King Timothy - joined Kitchener in the struggle, arraying themselves against Atilla the Hun, The Growler, and a coalition of spliter groups led by the Young Tiger:The be-boppers you see around
They all converse in a spacial tongue
"Ool-ya-koo" and "il-ya-da,"
One means "hello" and the other "ta-ta."
They call a man a "cat" and a girl a "chick"
And they're up to all kinds of shady tricks
With their "oop-bap-pa-da...."
By '53, the counter-revolutionaries were in control, leaving the clubs safe for an influx of trad bands and moldy figs. The following year, a CIA fresh off great successes in Iran and Guatemala, threw its support behind Dizzy Gillespie, upsetting the balance of power and driving reactionary forces into the shallows. By winter's end, clubs on Gerrard Street were in the boppers' hands, leaving Kitchener & co. free to fight against expeditionary forces newly arriving from Jamaica:
CALYPSO WAR
The Mighty Terror
Pye/Mixa : 1958
Available on: Trojan Calypso Box
Trojan : 2002
[Buy It]Labels: alex, calypso
posted by Alex
LINK |
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